Chapter 1

I was not entirely clear as to why my buddy Eric Anderson invited me to supper with him and his lovely wife Bobbie (short for Roberta, but don’t call her that). I knew that I would enjoy it, of course, even if Bobbie had the bad habit of teasing and flirting until I had blue balls. I figured that I would just go home and rub one out, or else go to the bar or something and try to get laid. Hell, I could hire a call girl if it came to that, though the risks were always a deterrent. It wasn’t like when I was in Rotterdam years ago and had access to all of those lovely Dutch whores. While I love America, I don’t love its hang-ups about prostitution, especially given how popular strippers and porn stars are ... there’s a real cognitive dissonance there, but I digress.

Perhaps I should explain a few things about me. My name is Mario Mancini, and yes, I’ve heard all of the jokes. I’ve never been married, though I dated in the traditional sense for a year or two before quitting it, after deciding that it wasn’t for me. Those people who miss “old-fashioned dating” have to be nuts, at least in my book. That’s signing up to be lied to, if you’re not stood up, and if you’re the guy, you’re expected to PAY for the privilege of having some stupid bitch lie to you to get a second date. Blind dates are a fool’s errand, if you ask me.

Plus, most of them are dumb enough to think that they can hook a man into a relationship by withholding sex until third date or something. Me? I didn’t waste time. You didn’t put out on a first date, screw you, and good luck ever getting me to ask you out again. These same girls would put out for a one-night stand, but NOT for a guy that they mean to have a relationship with, how fucked up is that? Of course, someone claimed it was because they didn’t want to build a relationship with them, and if you’re building a relationship, sex can only get in the way, or some such other psychobabble crap. I don’t buy that kind of bullshit.

To me, if you’d treat a stranger better than you’d treat me, that tells me all that I need to know about you. It tells me that you’re looking for a servant, not a boyfriend. Odds are, you’ll start withholding sex whenever you decide that he isn’t making you happy, and the next step is that you get horny and start cheating on him, but God forbid he cheat on you because he’s frustrated. Never mind that your frustration is your own damn fault for cutting him off! This kind of shit is part of why I don’t date in the normal sense anymore.

The other reason is that I don’t care for monogamy. I’ve realized that life’s too short to turn away companionship, to refuse sexual advances because you’re somehow tied down to one girl. The trouble is that I’m, at least officially, Catholic. Which means that, if my mother ever got her way, I’d be married and tied down to a good Catholic girl of some stripe, preferably Italian like me, and then I’d be expected to be faithful to her. Worse, even if I was, and then she was unfaithful to me, I’d be expected not to divorce her in spite of that!

That’s just a deal breaker, that kind of hypocrisy, at least for me. Maybe I just shouldn’t be Catholic, but I didn’t see any other religions being much better. They all had their own stupid rules in some measure. (I mean, come on, Mormons, NO COFFEE, REALLY?) Don’t get me wrong, there are some married men who get very lucky in terms of their wives, and I’d always thought that Eric was one of those lucky fools. In hindsight, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, though he certainly thought himself to be very fortunate with Bobbie.

Anyway, so here I am, happy bachelor that I am, invited over to eat supper, a home-cooked meal that I didn’t make for once (yes, I can cook, but, hey, I’m Italian and I’ve lived as a bachelor enough years that takeout, TV dinners, and canned goods become a little much after a while). It was a Saturday, so I already got my personal errands out of the way, and frankly, they weren’t all that many or stressful. Five days a week, I’m at the office, editing and publishing books. That’s right, I publish and edit, though I’m now branching out into E-books from sheer necessity.

There were no such monsters when I was young and new to this business, and at 40 years of age, well, you get the idea (yes, my mother is still harping on me to get married and give her some grandkids). I did pretty well, even wrote my own sci-fi and nearly autobiographical short stories set in Europe on the side and didn’t have any trouble getting my partners at the firm agreeing to publish it (we were a relatively new and independent publishing house that we started back when I was twenty and they, none other than Eric and Bobbie, were just nineteen). I was now worth a cool fifty million, but I didn’t let most folks know about that, and my partners were also worth close to that range.

Anyway, I showed up to Eric and Bobbie’s, unsure of just what to expect that day, as we hadn’t done this in quite a while. Admittedly, we had received an offer of a leverage buyout by a much larger firm, which would double each of our net assets, so that was perhaps worthy of celebration, assuming that we took the deal. I knew that I was sorely tempted, as it would mean that while I would still work for now, I would never really have to work again. I could retire whenever I pleased (technically, I already could, but I was eager to jump into the hundred plus million category first, just to be safe).

“Hey, Mario, good to see you again, outside of work for a change!” Eric told me with a firm handshake as always, followed by a big bear hug ... he was one of maybe two or three men that I would ever hug.

Speaking of hugs, I got a much tighter squeeze out of Bobbie, along with a kiss on the lips, albeit without tongue. She started doing that some time ago, after I got back from Europe, claiming that it was because she thought I might be used to it by now. Eric always saw it, but never complained, and who was I to decline a kiss from a drop-dead gorgeous blonde like Bobbie, anyway? As I said before, I considered Eric a very fortunate man when it came to marriage, and it wasn’t just on account of his wife’s beauty. Bobbie was always a very warm and affectionate woman, never one to shy away from hugs, kisses, and other expressions of sentiment. She also had curly, honey blonde hair that matched well with her honey colored eyes and golden tan.

Eric was no slouch, either, I must confess. If I was gay, he would have punched my ticket for sure, being tall, with plenty of lean muscle, and caramel skin that showed no sign of body hair. It might have had something to do with his swimming days, as he tried out for the Summer Olympics and didn’t quite make the cut. He still loved to swim like a fish and kept an outside pool for just that reason (an outside pool, in Oregon, where it’s not always warm enough for swimming!).

Apparently, his mother was from Barbados, so he got it honestly. His father was white as they got, but instead of hiding their interracial romance in fear, he simply pulled up stakes and left Mississippi for good, marrying Eric’s mother and settling down in Salem. Nobody around here gave that much of a damn that Eric’s parents were not of the same race, not that I could tell. Of course, Eric didn’t get the pressure from her that I got from my mother, because Bobbie and he got married young, even if there was still frustration that they were childless at almost forty.

Supper was a very pleasant affair, to say it mildly, Bobbie plying both of us with plenty of sausage, onions, peppers, and potatoes, a recipe that she picked up from her Serbian mother, it seemed. She also fed us plenty of bread, added to which she made sure that we had a good dose of brandy to wash it down. We had a good time, joking, teasing, flirting, and even a little footsie from Bobbie, which had my cock at full mast for a while there, much as I had feared. It was almost as if Bobbie had two husbands, not one, and she went out of her way to shower affection on both of us.

The evening wore on and the three of us continued to enjoy each other’s company. Bobbie let her hand smooth over mine several times, especially when she handed me something. She also did her best to make me feel very comfortable with her attention to me, while not neglecting her hubby in the slightest. If anything, she vamped him good as well, giving him tons of kisses and skin contact in plain sight of me. She also alluded more than once to his exceptional prowess in bed and how much he always satisfied her with his “big, thick dick,” as she put it. She also encouraged Eric and me to go for the sale and retire, saying that it was time to “stop and smell the pussy,” an intriguing choice of words.

We were all quite relaxed and cozy when we sat down on the sofa, at which point Eric cleared his throat a bit. It was clear that the topic was uncomfortable to an extent, whatever it was, but he was determined to broach it. Bobbie winked at him, and then at me, licking her lips for some reason, and also flashing me a bit of her underwear beneath her short skirt after uncrossing her legs. I could have sworn that it looked very dark and damp, in fact, which now had me nervous, yet aroused. What the fucking was going on here?

“Mario, I know that what I’m about to say here is likely to change our relationship a bit, for good or ill, but here it goes. Bobbie wants to have an affair with you, and I want you to go for it. That’s why she’s been cock teasing you so much, to get you in the right ... shall we say, frame of mind? Yes, this was very much a mutual decision, and Bobbie has assured me that I would get laid even more than I already do in the future, which is saying a lot, because she’s never denied me, not once. In twenty years of marriage, Bobbie has never failed to satisfy me in bed,” Eric told me, much to my astonishment.

“You ... want me to sleep with your wife? Eric, I’m your best friend! That’s very much against everything that a best friend’s supposed to do and you know that! Don’t get me wrong here. Bobbie is a knockout, and if she were single and propositioned me for sex, I would definitely grab her with both hands, but she’s your wife! You really want this, for me to fuck your wife? Is this one of those swinging, open marriage things, or is it more of a cuckold thing, because there’s no way in Hell that I’m going to shove your face into a creampie that I made and make you eat it. There’s no way that I would humiliate you, call you names, or anything of that sort. I definitely wouldn’t make you raise my kids, even though if circumstances were different, Bobbie would make one hell of a mother!” I reacted with sharp surprise.

“Actually, that’s the other thing, Mario. Bobbie and I have had trouble making babies, as you know. We’ve finally found out why. What you don’t know is that Bobbie has conceived a few times, only to miscarry. She ... well, it’s her place to explain better,” Eric turned to his wife.

“We had ... an abortion, Mario. Or rather, I did. Years ago, when we weren’t ready for kids. It left scar tissue that makes it tough to carry children to term. Because of that, the embryos need to be very robust and we need a lot of sperm to do the job. I do mean, a lot. A second source would dramatically improve our odds of conception and a safe delivery. It’s probably just going to be the one time, too, thanks to my age and the present risks. That’s the other reason why we’d like you to make love to me. And often, Mario. This wouldn’t be a fling. It would be a proper love affair, with both romance and sex included in it,” Bobbie told me, blushing a little in the process.

“You’re asking me to be your boyfriend, then. Boyfriend to a married woman, to another man’s wife. To my best friend’s wife. That’s the essence of it, am I right?” I queried, to which both of them nodded.

“Yes, you’re quite possibly going to be the father of my child or children. You’re my husband’s best friend, too. You’re our business partner, too. I’ve always been ... attracted and attached to you. You’ve been part of our lives for so long that there was never any question of who we wanted for this job. The more that we thought of it, the more it appealed to us to have you intimate with me in emotional as well as physical ways. It would be what some call a ‘V,’ at least for now.

“If you ever get married, well, then we’ll see what we do about that. No, I would never try to monopolize you, Mario. If you and Eric can share me, I’d be the worst sort of hypocrite not to willingly share either or both of you. I’ve made that very plain to him, too. As far as I’m concerned, he’s as free to take lovers as I am, given our rather unorthodox marriage,” Bobbie continued.

“So far, I haven’t had any interest, but it’s nice to know that I have options, the right or privilege in any case. I know that Bobbie would be as good about it as I have been here, though I won’t pretend that there will be no jealousy. Of course, there will be jealousy, but I can manage it. I have needs, she has needs, and you have needs. What’s the point in letting a few feelings of jealousy get in the way of satisfaction for all of us? Now, you will have a home base, if you will, a fallback if ... you know, strike out? Not that Bobbie is a second choice, because she isn’t, but you get the idea,” Eric stammered, trying to not sound weird in this bizarre situation.